By Dan Ambrose: Boxing fans are pretty excited about the May 5th fight pitting unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr. (43-0, 26 KO’s) against WBA junior middleweight champion Miguel Cotto (37-2, 30 KO’s) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It looks like a competitive fight that could go either way on paper, but in reality this fight is probably going to shape up to be a terrible mismatch with Mayweather wiping the deck with the well protected Cotto.

The thing is Cotto has been carefully protected by his promoter Bob Arum ever since Cotto took a beating against Manny Pacquiao in 2009. Arum has played it safe with Cotto since that loss, putting him in with two Top Rank stable fighters – Antonio Margarito and Yuri Foreman – and also matching him against 38-year-old well past his prime Ricardo Mayorga.

Boxing fans have been thrilled with Cotto’s performances in those fights and see his wins as proof that he’s improved as a fighter. In reality, Cotto probably hasn’t improved a bit. Once changed is that Cotto is no longer being matched against legitimate contenders. He was matched against a paper champion in Foreman, who had only good leg when they fought and no power.

Mayorga was as old as the hills, and Margarito was coming off of three serious eye surgeries without a tune-up. Cotto’s opposition has been rather poor to say the least when compared to the guys that are out there prowling the junior middleweight division just waiting for Arum to drop his guard and allow them to fight Cotto so they can pick him apart. The top contenders didn’t get a chance, but Mayweather did and he’s going to give Cotto a really bad beating in this fight and show what I already know – that Cotto isn’t the same fighter he once was.

Mayweather is going to come after Cotto and pick him apart on May 5th, and boxing fans will be surprised at how bad Cotto will look. I won’t, because I can see with my own two eyes who Arum has been matching Cotto against in the last couple of years to preserve him from taking any additional beatings. Mayweather will be all over Cotto smacking him around and taking advantage of all of his amateurish mistakes in the ring. This fight won’t be close, believe me. Cotto doesn’t have the skills to beat Mayweather and never did. He’s been carefully matched since day one and is now about to get exposed again.